Harvey Weinstein again convicted: a little satisfaction for the metoo movement

The legal details in the new edition of the New York process against Harvey Weinstein appeared in the face of the public’s interest, which (not least due to the statements by the Weinstein defender Arthur L. Aidala) has almost a little smaller in the past few weeks. Sure, a proper procedure must be in the interest of a constitutional state-even if the Trump government is systematically levering it, for example in immigration.

But was it in the two trials against Harvey Weinstein in New York 2020 and in Los Angeles 2023 not even about the question of whether sexualized violence and sexual coercion, these gray areas could also be legally punishable in the future? So: with criminal consequences for the perpetrators?

It was Aidala himself that called his clients a “Metoo poster boy” that was supposedly sacrificed to a social furor. But wasn’t liability for a criminal offense of civilizational progress that had been promised by the exemplary process against wine stone (an indictment for sexual coercion, one because of rape)?

Few Metoo perpetrators were condemned

Many perpetrators lost their jobs under the impression of the metoo movement, and the call was often irreparably damaged. “Canceln” is said in conservative circles. But only a few were convicted by courts; Or the debt pronouncements – as in the case of Bill Cosby, which over 60 women accuse rape and sexual abuse – were collected again for procedural errors. This fate is spared the women who blame Harvey Weinstein sexualized violence.

But the second New York wine stone process, in which the court came to judge on Wednesday in two of three charges, leaves a thread aftertaste. The 2020 judgment in the case of the former production assistant Miriam Haleyi, which Weinstein accuses of forced her in his New York apartment in oral sex in 2006, was confirmed by the twelve-member jury (seven men, five women). Haleyi once again had to expose herself to the defamation of Weinstein’s lawyer in the cross -question, but she convincingly presented her version of the events for the jury.

If one believes the “New York Times” court reporter, the public prosecutor’s statements were like a legal and argumentative egg dance because, unlike five years ago, you had to avoid statements and events that have nothing to do with the case currently negotiated. Such testimonies were the reason why the New York Court of Appeal collected the first judgment in April 2024. The behavioral patterns of supposed perpetrators are meaningful, especially in sexual offenses. Just because these patterns are so obvious in the case of Weinstein, the judgment was confirmed again.

Paradoxically, the statements of the former model Kaja Sokola, who accuses Weinstein, helped to have forced her as an oral sex as a minor. In her case, the jury was not convinced of Weinstein’s fault, but her testimony probably contributed to drawing a picture of the accused’s procedure. Sokola’s allegations were not yet part of the indictment in 2020. After the negotiation on Wednesday, she found that Weinstein was convicted again as satisfaction, even if there was no guilty verdict in her case.

That the jury is about the third case, the accusations of actress Jessica Mann, In the courtroom and in the meeting room, sometimes bitter word battles, which even considered the chairman jurors consider to involve judge Curtis Farber, may already reveal a lot about the change in the mood of sex offenders.

In 2020, the jury judgment about Harvey Weinstein, mind you under significantly greater pressure from the public, was still clear. Today the jury is almost raging. In the case of men, it is the most serious crime, the actress accuses Weinstein rape. However, after the crime she also started a short relationship with the former Hollywood mogul.

Some expert opinions have been heard about the psychological implications of perpetrators-victim relationships in the course of the process, and it was always about the credibility of women. Never that of the powerful.

In the coming days, the court also expects the judgment in the Jessica Mann case, then this unworthy spectacle will come to an end. If the jury came to a judgment other than 2020, that would be a dark day for the Metoo movement. And for thousands of Americans.